Colin Firth in a Series of Standout Action Scenes In “Kingsman: The Secret Service”

Colin Firth reveals his other side as a suave secret
spy in the non-stop “Kingsman: The Secret Service” directed by Matthew Vaughn
(“X-Men: First Class,” “Kick-Ass”) where a super- secret spy organization that
recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency’s
ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a
twisted tech genius.

The
director warned his leading man that, should he accept the role, there were
tough challenges ahead - very tough challenges indeed. “He said, ‘It’s going to
hurt and you’ll hate me by the end,’” laughs Firth. “All true!” Firth was indeed about to embark on a role
unlike any other that he has tackled during his long, distinguished career, and
he clearly loved it. Yes, he says with a smile, there were plenty of occasions
when, after a particularly gruelling day, nursing cuts and bruises, he questioned
quite why he had taken on an action role in a spy movie, but the rewards were
enormous.

In
“Kingsman: The Secret Service” Firth heads an all-star cast as Harry Hart, a
crack operative with secret independent intelligence organisation. Hart is a
British gentleman – a suave sophisticate impeccably attired in the finest
Savile Row suits – who also happens to be a formidable spy and, as Firth says,
‘a cold steel killer.”

Firth
embarked on months of intensive training to get into peak condition for the all
action role. He enlisted the help of his regular trainer, Ed Chow, and the hand
picked specialists, led by stunt coordinator Allen, recruited by Vaughn for the
film. “It was about six months, three
hours a day,” he explains. “Three hours a day, every day with this
extraordinary team of guys. I’m not an athlete, historically, at all. This was
taking a man in his 50s and starting almost from scratch – not quite from
scratch, because I’d done some fairly standard middle aged man’s maintenance,
over the years with my trainer.

Brad
Allan, an Australian martial artist and action choreographer who worked with
Vaughn on “Kick-Ass,” coordinated the fight sequences with a team that included
a parkour champion and a breakdancer Bradley Allen whom they discovered on
YouTube. One of the film’s many standout
action sequences is a climactic fight set inside a church, which sees Firth
taking out the entire congregation.
Incredibly, the scene was done in one take.

Much
of the stunt work was a new experience for Firth, whose character moves between
high-octane action and pensive stillness. When Harry does get involved in the
action, he’s unstoppable – while losing none of his sophistication. “It’s the ‘not a hair out of place’ world of
fighting at first,” explains Firth. “Then there’s sheer mayhem, where there
certainly are hairs out of place.”

To
prepare for the church scene, the production called upon the crack stunt team
Firth describes as “the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They have their own sets of amazing skills.
You have the Jackie Chan-like training team of Brad Allan, who’s one of the
finest martial artists in the world, and then we a have a six-times world
championship Thai boxer, an Olympic gold medalist gymnast, and someone from the
special forces to do the gun training. I didn’t know what hit me.”

Firth’s
training regimen took three hours a day, every day, for several weeks. “I was
learning to use parts of my body that I’d never used,” he says. “I didn’t even
know they existed. It was painful.”

“The
stunt people training Colin were incredibly impressed,” recalls
writer/co-producer Jane Goldman. “It’s
not something he’s done before and yet he was meticulous and so diligent in his
training. Colin’s worked harder than anyone I’ve seen before. Not because he
had to, but because he really wanted to. He nailed it, and almost none of his
action work involved stand-ins.”

“Kingsman:
The Secret Service” opens February 18 nationwide from 20th Century
Fox.